Slow Cooker Beef Brisket with BBQ Sauce

Tender, juicy, flavour infused slow cooker Beef Brisket smothered in a homemade BBQ Sauce. This is the stuff food dreams are made of! Quick to prepare, pop it in your slow cooker or pressure cooker, then finish it off on your BBQ or oven to get that gorgeous caramelised, sticky surface. The ultimate roast beef dinner or pile it on SLIDERS!

Farewell Calgary! I know many of you think I was crazy for not getting out to sight see all the natural surrounds of Calgary. Too pressed for time for this quick trip – it was 5 short days. But Calgary – I WILL BE BACK for more stampeding and next time, I am determined to get out into the wild. Instead of zipping in and out quickly, next time I visit Canada I will do it properly!

I wasn’t planning to share Slow Cooker Beef Brisket until next week, but after visiting the Calgary Stampede earlier this week and seeing all those BBQ stands, I simply had to bring this forward!

I really am not a girls’ girl when it comes to food. I don’t gaze in wonder at stunningly decorated multi-tier cakes. I don’t ooh and aah over pretty little chocolates. I have no interest in learning how to make candy.

But I do go gah-gah over sights like this – a giant hunk of flavour loaded meat.

I’m all class. All class. 😂

Beef brisket is an up-and-coming cut of beef in Australia. It’s not yet sold in supermarkets, though I have noticed pre marinated brisket appearing on the shelves.

Brisket is a cut of beef made for slow cooking, not fast cooking. It’s unique characteristic compared to other slow cooking cuts of beef is that it holds its shape even after hours and hours of slow cooking and can be sliced. When you slow cook other cuts of slow cooking cuts of beef like chuck, gravy beef (an Australian beef cut) and short ribs, they fall apart because there is more connective tissues running throughout the meat which breakdown with slow cooking.

However, as you can see in the photos in this post, brisket holds together and can be sliced. But the slices are ultra tender and could be shredded easily, see? 🙂

Brisket also shreds well, but I prefer using chuck beef or ribs for shredding as they have more fat running through the meat and so the shredded pieces are nice and juicy. Though brisket has a layer of fat on the surface, there actually is not that much fat or connective tissues running through it, so if you shred it then it’s pretty lean.

Come to think of it, it’s a great leaner option for shredded beef recipes! 🙂

This is one of those recipes that I consider trans-seasonal. Meaning – it’s terrific for those in the dark depths of winter, and everyone sweltering in the summer sun! Use your slow cooker or pressure cooker to avoid steaming up your whole kitchen with the heat from the oven, or perhaps if it’s freezing where you are then you prefer to use the oven!

Whatever your choice, you’ll find the directions in the recipe below. My favourite way of making slow cooked meats like this is to use the slow cooker. It’s the most hands off and easiest.

Happy weekend everyone! – Nagi xx

PS Oh – did I mention where I am now…..??

HELLO NEW YORK!!!

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SLOW COOKER BEEF BRISKET with BBQ Sauce

Prep Time

15mins

Cook Time

10hrs

Total Time

10hrs15mins

Beef brisket slow cooked until tender, then finished in the oven or BBQ to get that gorgeous caramelisation, basted with a homemade BBQ Sauce that the brisket is cooked in. The BBQ Sauce has a mild tingle of spiciness from the black pepper and cayenne pepper. Slice it and serve as part of a hearty Southern style supper (see notes for suggestions for sides) or pile it up high on sliders! VIDEO below, also see notes for PRESSURE COOKER & OVEN.

Servings: 8- 10 people

Calories: 476kcal

Author: Nagi

Ingredients

1.5 – 2 kg / 3 – 4 lb beef brisket(Note 1)

1tbspolive oil (or a neutral oil like vegetable, canola)

Rub:

1tbspbrown sugar

2tsppaprika powder

1tsponion powder

1tspgarlic powder

1/2tspcumin powder

3/4tspmustard powder

1tspsalt

1/2tspblack pepper

BBQ Sauce:

2garlic cloves, minced

1/2 cup / 125 mlapple cider vinegar

1 1/2 cups / 375 mlketchup

1/2 cup / 110gbrown sugar, packed

2tspEACH black pepper, onion powder, mustard powder

1tspcayenne pepper(adjust to taste re: spiciness)

1tbspWorcestershire sauce

Instructions

Place Rub in a bowl and mix to combine.

Rub all over brisket with your hands. If time permits, leave for 30 minutes – 24 hours in the fridge, but I rarely do this.

Combine BBQ Sauce ingredients in a slow cooker. Mix then add the brisket – squish it in if needed, like I did (see video).

Pour liquid in slow cooker into a saucepan. Bring to simmer over medium high heat and reduce until it thickens to a syrup consistency (it thickens more as it cools).

Meanwhile, drizzle brisket with oil then roast in a 200C/390F oven for 15 minutes until brown spots appear. Remove then baste generously with Sauce, then return to oven for 5 minutes. Remove and baste again, then return to oven for 5 – 10 minutes until it caramelises and looks like the photos.

BBQ OPTION instead of oven - fantastic chargrilled flavour: Brush grills with oil, then preheat BBQ to medium high. Place beef on the grills and leave until browned, then turn the beef over and brown the other side. Baste the beef generously and turn, then baste again. Do this repeatedly until there is a nice caramelised glaze on the brisket, then remove.

TO SERVE: Slice brisket thinly across the grain and serve with remaining BBQ Sauce. This is terrific served as a meal with sides or piled high onto rolls with Coleslaw as sliders. See Note 3 for more ideas.

Recipe Notes

1. This recipe will work on any slow cooking cut of beef but it works best with brisket because it holds its shape once slow cooked until tender, so it can be sliced. Other slow cooking cuts of beef like chuck beef, gravy beef (an Australian stewing cut) and short ribs have more connective tissues running through them so they fall apart after slow cooking so they can't be sliced. You could use a chuck beef roast that is tied together, but the pieces will fall apart more when sliced.

This recipe would also work for Bolar Blade roast but it's a leaner and thicker cut so just be aware it will be a bit drier on the inside. Still fall apart, and once smothered with the BBQ sauce, it's fantastic. But less moist in the middle of the beef.

AUSTRALIA: I get my brisket from the butcher, it is still relatively undiscovered so it is cheaper than steak but a bit more expensive than chuck. If you can, ask the butcher to give you the THICK end of the brisket. A reader has told me that Woolies also now sells rolled brisket which I have not seen myself yet so can't comment (will update when I am back in Sydney and check it out). My initial concern is that if it is rolled, then they are probably using the thinner end and the reader also said there is a lot of fat on it. Harris Farms also sells brisket but they are small pieces, and I am told Aldi recently sold it too. See notes below for adjusted cook times.

2a). The cook times provided yields a tender brisket that is sliceable but tender so the slices tear easily, as demonstrated in the video.Don’t stress too much about cook time - brisket is a cut of beef that holds together pretty well even cooked to the point of being shreddable. So even a 1.5kg / 3 lb brisket slow cooked for 10 hours should still be sliceable. Brisket that isn’t tender is tough and chewy but if you pull it out too early, don’t worry, just keep cooking!

OVEN: Put the Sauce ingredients in a roasting pan, add 2 cups water. Mix, add beef, cover with lid or double layer of foil. Bake 160C/320F for 4 hours, then uncovered for 30 minutes, checking every now and then to ensure the liquid doesn’t reduce down beyond a BBQ Sauce consistency (add water if it does). By this time, the brisket should be tender – check on edge with fork. Remove brisket, scrape sauce into a saucepan (easier to control consistency). Return brisket into roasting pan, turn heat up to 180C/350F. Simmer sauce over medium heat until thickens into a syrup consistency then slather onto beef. Roast beef, basting once or twice as required, until the surface caramelises per photo (time depends on how thick your sauce is).

2b) DIFFERENT SIZES: For a 800g - 1 kg / 1.6 - 2 lb piece of brisket, I would still slow cook for 7 to 8 hours on low because the cook time is more about brisket width rather than length.

For Sliders, I use soft rolls (brioche buns are pictured in the post) with Coleslaw.

4. MAKE AHEAD: Slow cook the brisket but do not bake, then transfer into a storage container with the cooking liquid (don’t reduce it down) and refrigerate for up to 3 days. To reheat, transfer brisket only into a baking dish and cover. Bake at 180C/350F for 20 minutes or until warmed through. Then turn up oven to 200C/390F, remove cover and proceed with recipe to brown and baste the brisket surface. Transfer sauce into saucepan and warm – you may not need to reduce. Use for basting per recipe.

5. SERVINGS: I usually budget for 250g/8oz of raw meat per head, to err on the side of caution. This shrinks to about 200g / 6.5 oz per head once cooked. That's a generous pile on rolls!

6. Nutrition per serving, assuming a 2 kg / 4 lb beef brisket with some fat on the surface (i.e. not trimmed of all fat), 10 servings, assuming all the sauce is consumed.

WATCH HOW TO MAKE IT

Slow Cooker Beef Brisket with BBQ Sauce recipe video! I speed through the part where I put the rub on the brisket to save you copping an eyeful of my BabyHands…. That brisket looks GIANT compared to my hands!! 😂

This sauce is to die for! Just lovely. I did the slow cooker method and the brisket was perfect. Then I tried the searing method on the BBQ to get a nice crust – unfortunately this was not successful and the meat firmed up considerably. It was still extremely tasty but nowhere near as melt-in-your-mouth as you would expect with a 9 hour slow cooker dish. I will definitely make it again, perhaps without the searing at the end, or perhaps I’ll try the oven method.